Back in the game: Kaleb Dahlgren skates, shoots, keeps his hockey dream alive

The digital clock on the arena wall hits 7:30 a.m., and Kaleb Dahlgren wheels onto the ice as the rest of Saskatoon wakes up.

He made sure to get plenty of sleep before this early-morning skate — his injured brain requires it — and now he’s happily immersed in hockey noise. Pucks boom off boards; skates carve half-circles.

“It’s those little things,” Dahlgren — a Humboldt Broncos’ bus-crash survivor — said appreciatively after coming off the ice an hour later. “Even the skate noise you make when you’re making a turn: It has that little creeech noise. Or when you’re shooting, you go bar-down and it’s the sound of the ping. It’s that little stuff that resonates with you, more than before.”

Dahlgren is one of nine elite local skaters, plus one goalie, sweating through drills this Thursday morning at Merlis Belsher Place. His dream is to play in a university hockey game with the York Lions, a team he joined and practised with last season.

He hasn’t dressed for a real game since the night of April 4, 2018, when the Broncos lost a 6-5, triple-overtime decision to the Nipawin Hawks. Two days later, their bus collided with a semi at a rural highway intersection. Sixteen people died; 13, including Dahlgren, were injured.

The collision fractured his skull, damaged his brain, fractured and cracked several vertebrae. Based on early brain scans, this trek onto the ice — the skating, backchecking, the upraised arms when he scores a scrimmage goal — should not have been possible.

“In the hospital, doctors said I was lucky even to remember my name,” Dahlgren says. “The fact I’m out here on the ice right now, skating with the guys, fully capable of understanding what’s going on at high speed and high intensity … it’s something really special. I’m very thankful to even be out here in the first place. And now that I have this opportunity in front of me, I want to chase it as much as I can.”

Dahlgren says his body feels fully healed, but his brain’s a work in progress. He’s babying it along, doing everything he can, but he hasn’t received a medical go-ahead to play contact hockey. He’ll have another scan in September.

York, which recruited Dahlgren before the bus crash on the recommendation of Broncos’ assistant coach Mark Cross, stayed true and welcomed him onto the team last fall. Cross, a York alumnus, died in the crash.

The oft-cheery Dahlgren practised and worked out with the Lions through the season, and he rooted hard during games — “with a smile on his face, cheering the guys on,” as York head-coach Russ Herrington put it Thursday.

Kaleb Dahlgren suffered a brain injury in a bus crash while travelling to Nipawin to play with the Humboldt Broncos. He is returning for a second year at York University where he is a member of the hockey team. He is pictured in Saskatoon, SK on Thursday, August 22, 2019. Matt Smith / Saskatoon StarPhoenix

There was apprehension, on both sides, when Dahlgren moved east. He didn’t want to be known solely as that kid on the Broncos bus. Teammates, while glad to have him on board, weren’t exactly sure what they could and couldn’t say.

On the first day of camp, Dahlgren asked Herrington if he could address the team briefly.

“I didn’t want to go in and be Kaleb Dahlgren of the Broncos,” he says now. “I wanted to go in and be Kaleb Dahlgren, new recruit, freshman. I wanted them to treat me as a normal player on the team; a normal rookie. I wanted to do rookie duties. I wanted to do everything a rookie does, and then some.”

So he stood up in that meeting — “the courage Kaleb showed to do that …,” Herrington says now — and talked.

“I said, ‘Hey, guys — I think most of you know who I am. And if not, I was involved in an accident. I want to be treated like a normal person. Treat me like a normal teammate. I’ve played the game for many years, and I know what it’s like to be treated normally. I don’t want to have any special recognition. If you chirp me, I don’t care. Don’t worry about me; I’m fine talking about everything (related to the crash), and if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here.’

“They all understood that completely, and they were thankful I said that. Some of the captains came up and said they were thankful that I’d cleared the air for the guys.”

Some players did have questions, and he was glad to answer them. Others never broached the topic. But they treated him like just another guy on the team, and he appreciates it deeply.

He was recognized on York’s campus, too, because the story of that crash and those boys did not stay sequestered in that Saskatchewan ditch.

He had trouble finding one of his destinations on the first day of class and arrived late, very conspicuously so. The professor asked for his name, and he said “Kaleb Dahlgren” before taking his seat.

“After the class,” Dahlgren relates, “some kids came up to me. They said, ‘Hey, we know what you’ve been through. We’re sorry for that, and we just want to wish you all the best.’ It was really nice of them to do that. And that was Day 1 of classes — the first day, I’m late, and I’m never late. It was a shock to the heart, but it was good.”

And now he’s getting ready for a second season at York while pursuing a commerce degree. When he’s finished that, he plans to shift into chiropractic studies. Someday, maybe he’ll run his own chiropractic business.

But right now, he wants to play hockey, so, so badly. He’s working out four times a week, and skating four more times — sometimes with Mark Peterson and Scott Dutertre, other times with Casey Bartzen.

The former work on “flow, passing, game-scenario situations”; the latter on “skill development, one on one, lots of edge work, quick moves in tight.” He’s constructing the complete package, just in case that brain allows him to play the game he loves.

When he was lucid, shortly after the crash, one of the things he told his parents — amid the tears and grief — was that he wanted to play hockey again someday, at York.

But he also knows his limitations.

“If I get 100 per cent clearance, then I won’t be nervous (about playing full-contact hockey),” he says. “But if I get that 99, I probably won’t come back, to be honest. It’s the only brain I have, and I want to be there for my family, my parents, hopefully my wife and kids in the future. I want to be fully there for them. If I’m not 100 per cent good to go, I’d be jeopardizing my future.”

But he’s a York Lion in the fullest sense of the word. He’ll represent the hockey team this coming season on York’s varsity sports council, helping to organize community events and drumming up support for teams and games.

Dahlgren is diabetic, and the program he started with the Broncos — Dahlgren’s Diabeauties, an outreach for kids with Type 1 diabetes — has moved with him to York. He wants to make it a non-profit, with proceeds going to a camp he envisions for diabetic kids.

When you visit the team’s website, Dahlgren’s Diabeauties is one of their most prominent links.

He’s a familiar and welcome presence in the York locker room — as a Lion, not a Bronco, even though his heart rests with both teams.

“The only thing missing,” Herrington says, “is being able to put him in a uniform for a real game.

“It means a lot to us that Kaleb picked York. We feel blessed every day that he’s in our lives. I just hope that at some point in time, before he leaves campus, we’re able to fulfil that dream of his — being able to play in a college hockey game. That’s the only thing that’s missing. Between my staff, the medical people at school, everybody involved, we want to make that happen for him. We’ve got our fingers crossed. There’s still a number of hurdles we’ve got to get over, but he’s done some remarkable things the last 16, 17 months post-accident. He did a lot of remarkable things before, too. You don’t say never with Kaleb Dahlgren. That’s just the fighting spirit he has.”

Dahlgren wants to stay a Lions hockey player as long as he’s on campus, but his Broncos buddies remain close at hand. He’s proud of them, he says. So very proud.

“Hockey or not, it’s nice to see them follow their dreams and passions,” he says. “(Brayden) Camrud’s out in Alaska now (playing college hockey); Graysen Cameron is coming back to try out for the Broncos, and last year they didn’t think he could play. Whether he makes it or not, it’s a huge step for him pushing forward and battling back from adversity. (Jacob) Wassermann, (Morgan) Gobeil, (Layne) Matechuk … every single guy has been a warrior so far, and it’s really nice to see that. It’s unbelievable, actually.”

And then Dahlgren heads downstairs, removes his hockey gear, changes into street clothes and moves on with his day — that puck pursuit churning in his head all the while.